801. Is God poison?

Comment #31245 by Rtambree on April 11, 2007 at 5:13 pm

I live in London and the majority of events I go to are free or have little cost (talks at the Royal Society, IQ Squared debates, British Museum, the two Tates and National Gallery, fringe theatre), UCL lectures, National Film Theatre festivals, Barbican concerts, DANA Centre, Natural History Museum talks, etc. I meet plenty of Londoners.

In any case, internet webcasts increasingly allow one to "attend" the best events around the world without leaving home. You might as well be in the Gobi Desert or on Pitcairn Island.

802. Is God poison?

Comment #31241 by Rtambree on April 11, 2007 at 5:05 pm

What practical use is sport? It's fun. So are lots of other things. It's not a value judgement. There's crap opera (stupid aristocratic Italian love triangles) and there's sublime sports (1999 World Cup Semi Final).

My point was about variety/diversity and not ranking one pastime above another.

803. Is God poison?

Comment #31236 by Rtambree on April 11, 2007 at 4:50 pm

Great Teapot

So we should eliminate everything in society that doesn't cure cancer? All painting, music, literature, debates, lectures, documentaries, film?

All I'm saying is that the NYC-London-Paris axis offers more variety of opportunity for artists and intellectuals than Sydney or Melbourne. There's more outlets: more journals, more newspapers, more opera houses, more concert halls, more art galleries, more museums, more theatres, more literary festivals, etc.

And it isn't just a function of population scaling. Sydney has 4 million people (half of NYC or London) but it only has 5-10% of the venues, if that. Where's Sydney's planetarium or Melbourne's science museum?

Yeah, sport's fun, no argument. But what if you want more?

804. The Human Body as an Evolutionary Patchwork

Comment #31228 by Rtambree on April 11, 2007 at 4:07 pm

8. Comment #31226 by RickM

Glad you're enjoying the Peter Ward lectures. They're some of the best around this year so far. Isn't the internet a great 'TV station'? - in one weekend you can be in Boston, Princeton, San Diego, London and New York.

It beats re-runs of Friends.

805. Is God poison?

Comment #31225 by Rtambree on April 11, 2007 at 3:50 pm

Australia:

Many successful people in the arts, media, sciences (academics, intellectuals, etc) end up with a one-way ticket out of Australia.

The pay is higher elsewhere, the exchange of ideas, the diversity of opportunity, the cultural sophistication, etc.

Australia enjoys a high standard of living, great climate, and is relatively egalitarian, but it can also be provincial, sport-obsessed, socially conservative, and intellectually barren. It has a reputation of middle class families renovating their homes, jockeying for position in the ludicrous real estate market, and having abnormally high working hours. Politically, the parties allow no public dissent (even the USA does).

So it's got its plusses and minuses depending on how large your horizons are. But about 1 million Aussies don't call Australia home.

806. We'd be better off without Religion

Comment #31193 by Rtambree on April 11, 2007 at 10:04 am

7. Comment #31192 by P. Dacey

You're right. There was no debate. Those who opposed the motion effectively redefined religion to some vague notion of doing good.

Furthermore there was no structured opportunity after the six statements to actually specifically refute the opponents' arguments one by one.

807. Is God poison?

Comment #31168 by Rtambree on April 11, 2007 at 8:47 am

Comparing Hitler to the Great Satan is a little unfair isn't it?

808. Sex, Love, and SSRIs

Comment #31162 by Rtambree on April 11, 2007 at 8:08 am

10. Comment #31158 by the great teapot on April 11, 2007 at 7:51 am

>Can dopamine be suppressed naturally

You don't want that. Too little dopamine and you've got Parkinsons. Too much and there's a whole suite of conditions. One of the recent BBC - Horizon episodes, Mad but Glad, was about the effects of too much and too little Dopamine...

Horizon - Mad But Glad
BBC 2 Tue 3 Apr, 9:00 pm - 9:50 pm 50mins

Is there really such a thing as the mad genius? Can an illness be a blessing and a curse?

At seven years old, Nick Van Bloss started shaking his head and couldn't stop.
Grinding his teeth, punching himself in the stomach; wild whooping noises followed.
Nick had Tourettes Syndrome. No medical intervention helped, but one activity
stopped it all: playing the piano. The minute Nick placed his hands on the keys his
symptoms vanished.

Instead, the intense energy fuelled his playing. By the age of 20, Nick was an award
winning international pianist. He felt sure that his illness had made him the success
he was. But had it?

Mad But Glad takes us on Nick's personal journey of discovery to see whether
Tourettes made him the man that he is. His path takes us to a manic writer, a
schizophrenic painter, a composer with Parkinsons disease and finally, to a fellow
Tourettes musician.

His trip leads to scientists who explore and reveal the biological basis for the
connection: the manic writer, herself a Harvard scientist, the eminent neurologist
Oliver Sacks, and the psychologist Jordan Peterson.

They believe genius can be traced to actual chemistry, that this governs not only
the drive to create but dictates the whole way an artist sees the world. To see
whether this applies to Nick, Horizon will look inside Nick's brain. But there's a
catch. The brain state necessary for great art can also be dangerously close to
mental chaos. Nick has walked the tight rope between the two. This journey will
reveal how close he came to the edge and how determined he is to triumph.
With some strong language.

809. Is God poison?

Comment #31151 by Rtambree on April 11, 2007 at 7:00 am

The most anti-American people I know are the neo-cons in the White House that harm the American people (private health care, poor education, increasing the gap between rich & poor, increasing the threat of terror, out-of-control military spending, exempting themselves from the international community, etc).

Highlighting the USA's poor health care (or other deficiencies) is actually PRO-American - we want the Americans to have access to proper health services, like other western countries.

810. Evolution of symbiosis

Comment #31147 by Rtambree on April 11, 2007 at 6:31 am

Reminds me of (Carl Sagan's first wife) Lynn Margulis' Symbiogenesis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiogenesis

811. The Human Body as an Evolutionary Patchwork

Comment #31145 by Rtambree on April 11, 2007 at 6:24 am

I highly recommend the Peter Ward lectures on 9th, 10th and 11 January 2007 - The Undesigned Universe

http://www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/lectures/

They're very interesting, covering a variety of disciplines: astronomy, cosmology, geology, climatology, biology, etc.

It's quite sobering to realise how many factors have to be right for life on Earth to have developed: the sun has to be right mass and metallicity, the position has to be right in the habitable zone in the galaxy, the solar system has to have a Jupiter to protect from asteroids but still shepherd comets in to supply water, the presence and size of the moon for rotational stability, the low eccentricity of the orbit, the iron core to generate magnetic fields to protect from radiation, the carbon cycle that regulates temperature, the narrow time windows between catastrophic events, etc, etc.

It makes one very pessimistic about the density of extraterrestrial intelligence throughout the universe - it might be very low... perhaps just one or two civilisations per galaxy, and these wouldn't even be simultaneous.

Despite this, Peter Ward presents the findings with humour and an absence of waffle.

812. The Moral Necessity of Atheism

Comment #31071 by Rtambree on April 10, 2007 at 10:01 pm

Ultimate debate:

S Harris, C Hitchens, R Dawkins

v

A McGrath, D Turner, R Warren

with a precise definition in the motion, a structured response segment, and a strict moderator to ensure particpants adhere to the topic.

And screened on primetime network TV.

813. Sex, Love, and SSRIs

Comment #31067 by Rtambree on April 10, 2007 at 9:15 pm

I wonder if there's any data on SSRIs and their effect on one's religiousity.

814. Is God poison?

Comment #30972 by Rtambree on April 10, 2007 at 1:32 pm

73. Comment #30964 by phil rimmer

A) We're stuck with it

If so, then why can large groups of people do without it? Almost all elite scientists, half of western Europeans, and Buddhists.

The number of atheists, in percentage and absolute terms, has shot up in the last 250 years, far exceeding the pace of biological evolution.

The cultural component to religion seems to swamp any biological predisposition. Our brains are fairly plastic. Even self-preservation (something intuitively innate) can be overridden in a suicide cult, and care of offspring (you'd think is hard-wired) can be overridden by a harsh dowry system. Sexual urges can be negated by a culture of celibacy.

In fact, the only human drive I can think of that can't be subverted by culture is status-drive, as it's so flexible in its expression - status can be measured on any material or non-material scale: fame, blood, strength, beauty, intelligence, wealth, virtue, etc.

815. Is God poison?

Comment #30915 by Rtambree on April 10, 2007 at 9:58 am

60. Comment #30912 by Yorker

On Robert Sapolsky - here's an excellent article summarising the anthropological literature on why Abrahamic monotheism developed in desert regions and how this environment shaped its concerns...

http://discovermagazine.com/2005/aug/desert-people

816. Is God poison?

Comment #30909 by Rtambree on April 10, 2007 at 9:42 am

55. Comment #30906 by briancoughlanworldcitizen

>"moderate" atheists that used to argue that we needed to be more respectful, understanding and consider theology seem to have vanished.

Whatever is more effective. Atheists along the entire spectrum would like to see a world with less religion. If a softly softly approach works better, than fine. If a "grow up, you weaklings" approach works better, then fine.

I suppose you need to do an experiment - divide 1000 theists up into groups: good cop v bad cop v control group and see which approach converts the most.

I suspect different personalities will respond to different approaches.

817. Even non-believers must recognise the moral necessity of Christianity

Comment #30907 by Rtambree on April 10, 2007 at 9:37 am

Nationalism

Europe's EU is hopefully one way of reducing the emphasis on nationalism. Acceptance of evolution, common ancestry, and secular humanism enlarges the "in group" to include more of humanity.

We're all Kenyans, as anthropologists say.

After all, the "nation state" is very modern invention - there's no reason to suppose it's stuck in our innate nature forever. The United States is just lagging behind Europe by 50-100 years. Germany 70 years ago had flags on every street corner and building.

818. Is God poison?

Comment #30905 by Rtambree on April 10, 2007 at 9:31 am

Yorker & Briancoughlanworldcitizen

I agree with your sentiments for Tyson. Despite the historionics, he is an intelligent and thought-provoking speaker. Sagan had a broader, classical education which he used to good effect. Shermer, despite not being as eloquent, is also deceptively reflective and moves on to secondary or tertiary arguments rather than just the obvious introductory thoughts. Jonathan Miller is another outspoken atheist intellectual that is underrated - supremely well versed in the classics and the sciences, crossing the CP Snow Two Cultures boundary.

Other favourites would be Jared Diamond, Robert Sapolsky and VS Ramachandran.

819. Praying for the Apocalypse

Comment #30882 by Rtambree on April 10, 2007 at 8:22 am

The Rapture

Seems like another wish to escape, just like the Mayflower to Plymouth Rock.

Christians can't think much of God's creation if there's an underlying desire to escape, stemming from a disgust with the imperfection of the real world.

In the 21st Century, there's no more Mayflower to take them to a far away land (perhaps SpaceShipOne). It's got to be done by a Deus Ex Machina.

820. Birds Do It. Bees Do It. People Seek the Keys to It.

Comment #30866 by Rtambree on April 10, 2007 at 6:13 am

And then one could add that concealed ovulation and differential investment lead to men insisting on the chastity of the woman, which in desert regions with scare resources, leads to the Abrahamic obsession with sex as sin, that the big three religions have.

Today, movies and computer games can have the most explicit violence, but sex is still taboo.

821. Is God poison?

Comment #30846 by Rtambree on April 10, 2007 at 4:01 am

>More proof that either Bethune did not read with intent to understand

If these religious-apologists do read Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, etc, then it's an interesting psychological phenomenon that their brains just edit out the pre-empted arguments - a vivid example of confirmation bias. It's analogous to the famous gorilla among the basketballers video, where most people don't see what should be obvious.

There's some intangible filter that doesn't even let the argument be recognised or considered, let alone be responded to.

822. Is God poison?

Comment #30837 by Rtambree on April 10, 2007 at 3:37 am

It's always the same responses - I'm getting bored reading them...

1. You're just a fundamentalist atheist
2. Look at all the good that Christians have done
3. Look at all the bad that atheists have done
4. People need religion - it's innate
5. Religion gives us our moral nature
6. Atheism has no sense of wonder or awe
7. The God you mock isn't one I recognise
8. You can't judge religious people by the few extremists out there
9. Most people believe in a God
10. You can't disprove God

823. Is God poison?

Comment #30824 by Rtambree on April 10, 2007 at 2:35 am

You've got a tough skin, Richard, to keep getting slandered, misquoted, taken out of context, and having crucial arguments ignored. It must be frustrating.

We've noticed that so many reviews of The God Delusion and reactions to this new vocal atheism seem to ignore the very arguments that you, Harris, Dennett, Miller, etc present. It's as if reviewers haven't bothered to read the book or listen to the actual arguments. There's no dialogue.

824. Praying for the Apocalypse

Comment #30768 by Rtambree on April 9, 2007 at 6:11 pm

Question: Has anyone ever personally met anyone that seriously believes in the Rapture?

825. The Coulter Hoax: How Ann Coulter Exposed the Intelligent Design Movement

Comment #30759 by Rtambree on April 9, 2007 at 5:38 pm

This is getting confusing. Is Coulter really an atheist liberal trying to infiltrate right wing creationism by writing a parody of ID, trying to out-Colbert Colbert, by adding one more twist?

Perhaps it's all a plan within a plan within the Matrix. Believe nothing.

The media is run by a secret cabal of Rabbis in Jerusalem who are really working for the CIA infiltrated by Al Qaeda, who are really aliens led by Elvis from Atlantis that have an agenda to fake moon landings by manipulating crop circles.

826. Prophets of the new atheism

Comment #30686 by Rtambree on April 9, 2007 at 10:48 am

102. Comment #30590 by Bonzai on April 9, 2007 at 1:24 am

> In many(most?) great civilizations the gods were not regarded as the sources of morality

Yes, Jared Diamond supports this viewpoint too i.e. in hunter-gatherer societies, morality and cosmology were separated. It's only after the rise of agriculture allowed population densities to rise so much that the human brain could no longer monitor reciprocity that morality needed to implemented top-down...

http://www.mafhoum.com/press4/116S22.htm

And why did Abrahamic monotheism arise in the Middle East and not somewhere else? Robert Sapolsky gives a great answer...

http://discovermagazine.com/2005/aug/desert-people

827. Even non-believers must recognise the moral necessity of Christianity

Comment #30638 by Rtambree on April 9, 2007 at 5:23 am

34. Comment #30636 by briancoughlanworldcitizen

>Islam is an odious religious cult. No argument. But Islam does not represent anything approaching an existential threat to western civilisation,
even in the EU

That's right. Inverting the aggressor / victim relationship is what "intellectuals" are good at. Throughout history, there have been countless examples: black slaves, American Indians, German Jews, the working class, Saddam Hussein's WMD, Nicaragua, Tasmanian Aborigines, etc. The rule seems to be: Always make out that you're within an inch of being annihilated so you can justify whatever atrocities you yourself are inflicting.

828. Even non-believers must recognise the moral necessity of Christianity

Comment #30622 by Rtambree on April 9, 2007 at 4:04 am

24. Comment #30620 by denoir

>In the case of Christianity vs Islam, it is not a question of a choice between pest and cholera, but a choice between pest and cancer. As bad as the former is, it is still far more manageable than the latter.

No. Just compare the body counts - Christians kill a LOT more Muslims than Muslims kill Christians. During Clinton's time, economic sanctions are estimated to have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. The Bush invasion killed a further few hundred thousand. No more really knows the exact amount. Thousands more in Afghanistian. How many westerners do Muslims kill by comparison? 10%? 5%?

Compare the 2006 Hezbollah v Israel conflict. Once again, Muslim deaths exceed Israeli deaths by at least 10:1 or 15:1. That's a conservative estimate.

That doesn't mean outrage at Islamic stone age thought should be silenced, but it's not mutually exclusive. One's condemnation should be in proportion to the violence and suffering inflicted.

829. Even non-believers must recognise the moral necessity of Christianity

Comment #30621 by Rtambree on April 9, 2007 at 3:56 am

13. Comment #30606 by briancoughlanworldcitizen

>Not if we make "eternal life" medically feasible

Great point. If science trumps religion in every respect (explanation, indefinite life, then there'll be no more reason to cling on). Humanity will finally have grown up.

Whether this will happen before extremists get hold of WMD and set us back 1,000 years is another matter. Progress is not guaranteed - look at the vast dark age between Classical Greece and the Renaissance when there was regression, not progression (it's no coincidence that the Christian Church was in charge of all aspects of society during the second half of this 2,000 year gulf).

One could say with some confidence that religion will decline when one or more of the following occur...

1. University-level science literacy becomes standard curriculum.
2. A modern liberal democratic social welfare state.
3. Further life extension (and quality of life) through medicine (further eliminations of diseases, etc).
4. The discovery of life elsewhere (further undermining Genesis) e.g. Mars, Europa, etc.
5. The majority of leaders, role models, celebrities, sports stars, intellectuals, etc are happy to label themselves atheist - the herd instinct will do the rest.

830. Sociable Darwinism

Comment #30558 by Rtambree on April 8, 2007 at 4:28 pm

Nuture trumps nature.

Whatever is innate about religion can be brushed aside with a good science education. 92% of National Academy of Science members don't believe in a God. Hundreds of millions of Buddhists don't believe in a divine creator. Western Europe has tens of millions of atheists.

While one can argue over religion's origins, it's clear that many people can exist quite comfortably without the fairytales, and if you zoom out and look at Big History, the number of atheists is growing.

As a general rule, the less you need God (for explanation, for comfort, etc), the less you believe in him.

831. Kansas State School Board Bans Pokemon Due to Evolution Content

Comment #29838 by Rtambree on April 5, 2007 at 5:10 am

33. Comment #29799 by John Pritzlaff

>It's a sad reflection of the world today that something like this could actually pass as reality.


Just goes to show that being an atheist gives you no immunity from falling for bullshit. Michael Shermer is flirting with the Ayn Rand Objectivists, becoming an ultra free marketeer while Sam Harris seems to be sympathetic to Buddhism and reincarnation.

832. The Most Hated Family in America

Comment #29621 by Rtambree on April 3, 2007 at 4:07 pm

Like WACO, Jonestown, Schäfer, Manson, Heaven's Gate, Shinrikyo, Jeffs, etc, it'll probably all end in tears.

Take one highly charismatic leader with a rampant Y chromosone (most of these leaders have >10 children), add isolation and indocrination, mix in a a gross distortion of orthodox religion (the vulnerable are already targeted) and finally add an apocalyptic doomsday prophecy, and you got yourself a cult.

Prediction - there'll be some violent act, mass suicide, impregnation of all the daughters, or something sick like that.

I hope I'm wrong though and they just let laughed into obscurity.

833. Is this another Sokal Hoax?

Comment #29442 by Rtambree on April 3, 2007 at 12:47 am

Watch a David Lynch film first, and it'll make more sense.

834. Atheist says he's victim of religious hate crime

Comment #29441 by Rtambree on April 3, 2007 at 12:45 am

Could be worse...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno

835. Religion useless to Dawkins

Comment #29440 by Rtambree on April 3, 2007 at 12:40 am

It's just fluff between the adverts.

836. Is this another Sokal Hoax?

Comment #29273 by Rtambree on April 2, 2007 at 12:04 pm

38. Comment #29202 by Lamentz on April 2, 2007

>or (b) ... I won't spell it out."

Chomsky won't spell it out, but I will.

Fraud. It's either outright fraud (how long can I keep this up until retirement) or it's self-delusion (all these students and colleagues are stroking their chins in my lectures, so it much be meaning something to them).

837. A History of Violence

Comment #29006 by Rtambree on April 1, 2007 at 6:35 am

36. Comment #28995 by CaptainShiny on April 1, 2007 at 5:34 am

>Anyone else think that Pinker looks a bit like Voltaire?

Conductor Simon Rattle's twin brother...

http://www.simonrattle.co.uk/

and then click Gallery

838. Richard Dawkins Explains 'The God Delusion'

Comment #29002 by Rtambree on April 1, 2007 at 6:16 am

109. Comment #28997 by fonex_86

>The religious right is not like the Taliban only in the sense that they don't kill people who disagree with them -- or at least, not yet.

One could argue that the Christian Right kills more people than the Taliban. Weapons sales to Israel, bombing of Afghanistan civilians, the Iraq invasion, the Iraq sanctions all through the 1990s, bombing in Sudan, the infant mortality and lower longevity rates in the USA, etc, etc.

Doctrine for doctrine, the Christian Right may no longer have the same medieval fervour compared to Islam, but its resources are so much more formidable. One B52 bomber trumps 100 suicide bombers. The Pentagon budget dwarfs every Muslim extremist's resources combined.

839. Is this another Sokal Hoax?

Comment #28988 by Rtambree on April 1, 2007 at 4:21 am

It's not just philosophy that produces this drivel (hoax, fool's day or serious), but art criticism, literary criticism, much of economics and a lot of the social sciences.

There's too many academics for too little new knowledge.

Genuine new knowledge comes slowly, painstakingly, and with increasingly industrial-sized research projects (dark energy, LHC, human genome project, etc), but every day there are hundreds more PhDs with pressures to publish.

It's analogous to 24-hour news channels - journalists end up interviewing each other with speculations as to what the Vice-President meant by using that word last week, etc.

Too many journals, too many journalists, too many academics, too many content-producers, etc for actual number of genuine new ideas and data.

840. Stephen Hawking Says Universe Created from Nothing

Comment #28947 by Rtambree on March 31, 2007 at 7:20 pm

82. Comment #28916 by Snaffle

Good post. Yes, perhaps the right question is not "why can't we understand quantum mechanics, relativity, etc" but the question should be...

"How can a savannah ape (98% chimp) comprehend and achieve as much as we do?": moonwalking & ISS, understanding our own origins through phylogeneitic trees, probes to the outer planets, internet connectivity & mobile telecommunciations, fMRI & PET imaging, microprocessors, exploring deep sea vents, navigating virtual worlds, listening to worldwide podcasts & any music on a coin-sized mp3 player, etc

841. U.N. Panel OKs Measure on Islam

Comment #28942 by Rtambree on March 31, 2007 at 6:33 pm

Luckily, the council has no power in this case, so it's not the end of the world.

But it's sad to see in the 21st century. One step forward, three steps backwards.

842. A History of Violence

Comment #28938 by Rtambree on March 31, 2007 at 5:55 pm

Most wars in history are ultimately caused by the Y-Chromosone wanting to outbreed its competitors e.g. Genghis Khan, Attila, lebensraum, etc, etc.

The Y-chromosone will co-opt whatever it needs to facilitate this: usually by exploiting in/group divisions: ethno-linguistic, religion, nationalism, "race", etc.

Frequency of violence (percentage based) has gone down in modern societies as technological sophistication has allowed more (absolute) numbers of people to be killed.

Percentages are only down because modern agriculture & medical science have allowed population densities to rise.

Had the Crusaders had nukes, then we might not be here today.

In a sense, it's a race against time - will secular society and humanist values rise in time before low-cost WMDs allow cults and fundamentalists to 'punch above their weight'.

Who knows?

843. Richard Dawkins Explains 'The God Delusion'

Comment #28845 by Rtambree on March 31, 2007 at 8:07 am

Interesting debate about the culpability of Americans...

All sorts of issues...

1. Democrats voted for the war too.

2. Bush was RE-elected with an INCREASED vote after the war's pretenses turned out to be false.

3. Do the media tell Americans the full story? Does it insulate them from the horrors their country inflicts on others? Would Americans vote differently if they knew that millions of civilians had been killed by American foreign policy (directly or through proxy) since WWII?

4. Does the underfunded education system equip Americans to make critical decisions? While their universities are world-class, I've heard their schools are little more than day-care centres.

5. Does the American winner-take-all political system allow third parties / independents an equal opportunity to stand against the two corporate parties? Even Nader supporters were "forced" to vote for Democrats in Swing States - is this right?

6. Is Dubya actually competent enough, intellectually, to stand trial? A good case could be made that his retardation grants him diminished responsibility, so a war crimes tribunal might have better success against Rumsfeld, Cheney, et al.

There's no easy answers, but it's pretty safe to conclude that 95% of anti-Americanism is directed towards the White House, and were Nader or Gore president, then I'm confident the world community would embrace the USA as friend again (assuming the neo-con policies were reversed).

844. Richard Dawkins Explains 'The God Delusion'

Comment #28609 by Rtambree on March 30, 2007 at 5:12 am

32. Comment #28604 by Yorker

Agreed. All countries have roughly the same genetic variation, and yet some are highly religious and some have low religiousity, so it can't be genes.

Winston, Collins, McGrath, Polkinghorne, & Turner, etc are abnormal cases that buck the trend of scientific literacy and atheism, but it'd still be fascinating to find out how the mechanism of compartmentalism works neurologically.

Unfortunately media interviews and debates are far too superficial to get to the bottom of this. You'd need an extended discussion where you relentlessly thrashed out each specific issue (e.g. miracles, creation, unID, scriptural inconsistency, etc) until you got to the root cause.

845. Richard Dawkins Explains 'The God Delusion'

Comment #28606 by Rtambree on March 30, 2007 at 5:02 am

7. Comment #28535 by davec

>Yes, we're nothing more than survival machines, life is absolutely meaningless and that's just tough.

Well, it works both ways. It's a "glass is half full or empty" scenario. While science undermines our anthropocentric biases, it also liberates us from kneeling before God(s), from having priests tell us what we should do, from the fear of having a psychopath in the sky judge us for failings He gave us and then sending us to eternal torture.

846. Study Finds Shark Overfishing May Lower Scallop Population

Comment #28598 by Rtambree on March 30, 2007 at 4:17 am

Interesting, but is this relevant to Richard Dawkins.Net?

847. Stephen Hawking Says Universe Created from Nothing

Comment #28596 by Rtambree on March 30, 2007 at 4:13 am

Comment #28580 by Shane McKee on March 30, 2007 at 1:07 am

>I agree re Penrose. Very smart dude, but all that quantum microtubule stuff is just silly.

It's just a 20 year old idea. He's not really pushing it as Gospel these days. Nothing wrong with scientists thinking outside the square, especially with regard to consciousness. It's probably wrong, but it's falsifiable, provocative and kept the neurologists honest. I'm following Christof Koch's NCC and Ramachandran's research as more fruitful and illuminating, but progress has been excrutiatingly slow. We know what Active Galactic Nuclei are across the universe and even can analyse atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars, but we know little about what's inside our own coconuts.

As for AI, progress after 50+ years is not encouraging. Minute nematode worms are more intelligent than the most advanced supercomputers.

848. Richard Dawkins Explains 'The God Delusion'

Comment #28595 by Rtambree on March 30, 2007 at 3:56 am

27. Comment #28585 by amesolaire

>#6 is one that he's been asked on numerous occasions.

In the Paxman interview, he doesn't actually answer #6 - i.e. *how* the compartmentalisation takes place. In Beyond Belief, Neil deGrasse Tyson was commenting on the statistics that 92% of members the National Academy of Sciences are atheists. For him, the mystery was the 8% that weren't. How can someone who is highly educated, highly scientifically literate STILL continue believing??

Until we understand this, it undermines the idea of promoting atheism and science education (TGD) if there's still a residual of people that will believe no matter what.

I'd like to invite Dawkins to speculate (of course no one knows) as to *how* compartmentalisation takes place, because it suggests a biological determinism to religion, and not upbringing or the environment. Some of my other questions in that top 10 list allude to that.

If there is a hard-wiring, then religion will never be eliminated, especially if religious people outbreed the non-religious. We can only hope to reduce the virility and fervour of it.

Of course, there may be other effects. If, say, 60% of the population became atheists, including all celebrities, politicians, and role models, then the Herd Instinct may do the rest and tip it to 95%+

However, most irreligious countries didn't become that way because of a top-down advocacy or banning, but by raising living standards, social welfare, and science literacy.

The less you need God, the less you believe in him.

If you plot religiousity and standard of living on a graph for all 190 countries, there's a clear inverse relationship. The USA is an exception, but almost all other countries follow this rule.

849. Richard Dawkins Explains 'The God Delusion'

Comment #28555 by Rtambree on March 29, 2007 at 5:34 pm

17. Comment #28553 by sane1

OK, change Question #2 to "Are you planning to write a second edition of the God Delusion that takes onboard and expands upon all the criticisms in response to the first edition?"

850. John Paul Sainthood Nun 'Gentle, Simple'

Comment #28552 by Rtambree on March 29, 2007 at 5:18 pm

I wonder if anyone really believes in prayer, when push comes to shove.

Even religious people call an ambulance when their children get run over on the street.

If they *really* believed, wouldn't they want their loved ones to go to Heaven and be happy, free of all pain, stress and suffering, in perpetual Willy Wonker Land?